1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a metallic pipe-cutting apparatus used to continuously cut elongate metallic pipes such as aluminum pipes to manufacture shorter pipes of a predetermined length.
The word "forward" in this specification means a direction in which the elongate metallic pipes are transported.
2. Description of Prior Art
A prior art pipe-cutting apparatus in general comprises, as shown in FIG. 7, a support roller 82 disposed rearwardly of a main body 81 of the apparatus. A chuck 83 is interposed between the main body 81 and the support roller 82 so as to reciprocate therebetween. An elongate pipe 84 is intermittently moved a desired distance towards the main body 81 of the pipe-cutting apparatus which cuts the pipe 84 in a continuous manner. The main body 81 comprises a cutting blade 85 and a clamper 86.
The chuck 83 in the prior art apparatus repeatedly grips the pipe 84 at different portions thereof so that predetermined lengths of the pipe 84 can be delivered one after another to the pipe-cutting apparatus. Therefore, many scratches or damages are produced by the chuck 83 on an outer peripheral surface of the pipe 84.
Further, the support roller 82 also causes scratches or contact flaws on the surface of the pipe 84 while it is transported being supported on the roller.
Those scratches or flaws will be very serious defects if the pipe 84 produced by the drawing process is to be cut to make photosensitive drums which bear thereon a photosensitive layer such as selenium layer or organic photoconductive layer to be installed in the electronic copiers, laser printers or the likes. Consequently, the yield of acceptable products has been not satisfactorily high.